Matthew 22: Conflict

• PART 1: A pointed parable
  • v.1-14 The Parable of the Wedding Banquet
• PART 2: A series of challenges to Jesus
  • v.15-22 Paying the Imperial Tax to Caesar
  • v.23-33 Marriage at the Resurrection
  • v.34-40 The Greatest Commandment
• PART 3: Jesus’ counter challenge
  • v.41-46 Whose Son Is the Messiah?

[Preliminary Note: This chapter presents us with what is almost outright war between Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees. In this final week in Jerusalem, the pressure is building up to eventually stir the authorities to rise against Jesus. It is almost as if Jesus is purposely provoking them to bring this about by the Passover.]

v.1-14 The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

v.1,2 Jesus next pointed kingdom parable is about a banquet

v.1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying:

v.2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.

[Note: Jesus continues teaching about the kingdom in parables so now he tells of a king planning a banquet for his son.]

v.3-7 The fate of the rejecting ‘guests’

v.3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

v.4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

v.5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business.

v.6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them.

v.7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

[Note: When he sent out invitations, the guests refused to come. He tried again but to no avail. Indeed some dealt harshly with his servants, so he had them killed.]

v.8-10 So he invites outsiders

v.8,9 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come.  So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’

v.10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

[Note: So he sends his servants to find people on the street and they gather a mixture of people. The not very veiled challenge to Israel is that God will give the kingdom to the Gentiles after they have spurned all of God’s offers.]

v.11-14 A ‘gate-crasher’ is dealt with

v.11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.

v.12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

v.13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

v.14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

[Note: One ‘guest’ had no wedding clothes and so the king challenged him, and he was cast out. [Only those clothed with a right heart and right attitude will be saved.] A principle: God’s word goes out to all, but only a few respond and are thus ‘chosen’.]

v.15-22 Challenge: Paying the Imperial Tax to Caesar

v.15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.

v.16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are.

v.17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”

v.18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?

v.19,20 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”

v.21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.  Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

v.22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.

[Note: The Pharisees plot against Jesus. They speak well of him but ask about paying tax to Caesar [which they knew the people didn’t like doing]. Jesus saw through their plot so asks for a Roman coin and declares, give to Caesar what is his and give God what is His. They were amazed and left him.]

v.23-33 Challenge: Marriage at the Resurrection

v.23 That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question.

v.24 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him.

v.25-27 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh.  Finally, the woman died.

v.28 Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”

v.29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.

v.30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

v.31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you,

v.32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

v.33 When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.

[Note: Next Sadducees came to trap him and state Moses law of succession in an imaginary scenario, a tale of a widow. They then question Jesus about the situation at the resurrection [though not believing in it]. Jesus declares their ignorance and says marriage is for now, not for heaven. He refers them to scripture: God is eternally present, God of living and dead [Exo 3:6] and this creates astonishment in his listeners.]

v.34-40 Challenge: The Greatest Commandment

v.34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.

v.35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

v.36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

v.37,38 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.

v.39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  

v.40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

[Note: The Pharisees will not give up and so they send an expert in the law who asks about the greatest commandment. Jesus points them to Deut 6:5 and then to Lev 19:18. These two are at the heart of the whole Law.]

v.41-46 Counter-challenge: Whose Son Is the Messiah?

v.41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,

v.42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” “The son of David,” they replied.

v.43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,

v.44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’

v.45 If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”

v.46 No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.

[Note: As they gather, Jesus questions them, whose son is the Messiah. David’s, they say. But why does David call the Messiah Lord, that’s what scripture shows? [Psa 110:1] If he’s David’s lord, how can he be his son? This silenced them – and must leave them thinking.]

For those who may wish to make a study of this chapter, to perhaps think some more about what you have been reading, use the link below: